


From Nanami, With Love

by LittleRaven



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: F/F, Pre-Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-10 01:04:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15280182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven
Summary: Girls help girls. Nanami feels her duty.





	From Nanami, With Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [callixto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/callixto/gifts).



> Set after Episode 32 "The Romance of the Dancing Girls" and before Episode 37 "The One Who Brings the World Revolution." 
> 
> It's f/f, but mild enough for the "pre-femslash" tag I think. I hope you like it, callixto!

Animals. Not the specialty of a refined girl such as herself, but an ugly necessity. Nanami has always done what is necessary; she’s proud of the way they talk about her. She makes them talk about her, and that’s a power all its own. 

Not that she needs to make them. It’s what she deserves. She’s always known that. Sometimes people just...need a push to admit it. 

Hence the rats. She hides the cage in her bag. Five white, clean—she wasn’t going to keep dirtying her hands managing them, or her lovely leather, and the scrubbing had been an adventure all its own—rats, ready for the higher purpose she has given them.

Nanami skips. Everything is going to be fine this time. Her journey is one of ever rising perfection. She makes it happen. She’ll make this happen. The rats just need to be placed strategically. One in a gym bag. Two others in a locker. The remaining three in the shower. 

They like girls being macho? Even the common sort of person the academy is overflowing with must have a limit. They can’t like pest-ridden vermin, especially not if a girl like Nanami suffered from exposure to them. 

“Poor Nanami, what a trial!” She holds her free hand to her head, smiles at the stares—of course they’re staring, she’s Nanami—and keeps skipping. 

Everyone will have to start being a little more honest about who’s who around campus. That’s all she wants. A little honesty would go a long way with these people. Even someone as dense as Utena. Particularly someone as dense as Utena. 

That has to be the case. The girl is too nice for it to be anything else. So, it’ll be healthy for her. “Thank you, Nanami!” Another one to drop right into her pile of subjects. Anthy will be crying. Her most bewitched protector, gone. Yes, Nanami is performing a good deed. 

She’s never understood why, if Utena needed someone to play prince for, she’d pick someone like Anthy. Lying, conniving women don’t get princes. That’s the way of the world. How did anyone miss that? Princes are for princesses. 

Nanami has her own prince already; her good fortune and grace naturally include him in the form of a brother. She doesn’t need another. It doesn’t stop them from falling in line to be one for her. That’s as it should be. How could it ever be otherwise? 

On her path, Miki is sniffing a rose, dreaming. Good thing she has no need of him. 

All the girls should look up and follow. She works so hard to set the right example. She knows she can make something out of anyone, if only they’d listen wholeheartedly instead of being stubborn. Hey, if they want to play games, she can do it too. She can meet them on their level, in the dirt, and show them how not to be vermin. Their stubbornness is nothing compared to Nanami’s gift of patience. A princess must be gracious. 

Ah, the gym. The place of destiny, where all would be revealed. She laughs, long and clear; like a church bell, she is told. Was told. “A wind chime on a gentle breeze!” The triplets, having harmonized their way back into her benevolent indifference, pop back out of her hearing. 

It’s time. 

Rat one—eaten by the monkey pet. Of course. She slides down to the bench by the infected bag. No sense swooning. Very little sense; it’s a bench in a locker room. Entirely the wrong setting. This is why she has brought five rats. 

Ratley the Second. Poor Ratley. Why was the monkey in the locker, too? These hadn’t even been Anthy’s things. Does Utena think the creature is her pet too? She has much to learn about Anthy and sharing. They might be in the same living space, but there were never girls more apart, even—and she shudders to think it, but no truly sophisticated girl will shrink from the facts of life—even Nanami shared more with Keiko, Aiko, and Yuko. At least they all followed the same natural rules, and they knew it. Utena thinks she’s following some sense of moral rightness, a chivalry, and continues to behave as if the ways of Ohtori don’t apply or even exist. It blinds her. 

She deserves more. Even the rats deserve more. 

With care, Nanami holds the last three rats behind her back. She steps into the shower room after Utena, blocking Anthy. She’s just past the entrance. She shivers. Her back tingles. Her nerves itch, all the way to her neck, up to her hairline. 

A lesser creature might have cried. Nanami screams. 

The fainting couch is soft through the towel she’s wrapped in. So is the blanket atop it. She nuzzles the cushion, sighing. There’s a sparkling bright swath of hair in front of her face. Big brother….it’s not the right color. She blinks. 

Above her is the bemused face of her rescuer. Naturally. When does Utena Tenjou ever look different? 

“Are you trying to cause trouble again?” Utena sighs, then shrugs. Her smile is beleaguered. “How does falling back on old habits make sense right now? Still, I’m sorry you’ve been going through a rough time.” 

It takes less than a second for Nanami to sit up. It’s not a fainting couch, she realizes—it’s the bench, and she’s been resting her head on Utena’s bag. The blanket is another towel. She holds it around her shoulders. 

“Listen. I’m not the one who hasn’t learned. And I have never caused trouble.” She sniffs. “I’ve just been trying to teach you what you won’t understand.”

“Hey, I—”

“Forget it.” It’s in her face. The girl is finally starting to feel there’s something wrong, and it’s not enough. Nothing is enough. 

Well. Resignation isn’t a good look on anyone. It’s not worthy of Nanami. Same as doubt and wear are unbecoming on Utena. There’s time. 

Nanami rises. She’s going to make things right. _One day, Utena._ One day, her nobility will be fully recognized at last. 

Utena is watching. She tosses her head and lets the hair shake before the girl slips back in the shower room, Anthy moving in to follow with her smile. Nanami squares her shoulders. She can wait.


End file.
